Natalie Damschroder - Heavy Metal

Sharla snickered, earning a sour look from her partner that became smug when he turned back to Riley. “Look, call him over if you want. You can’t connect us to anything that’s happened to you before last night. Maybe we go to jail for half an hour before they realize they have no grounds to hold us. No biggie.” He shrugged. “But you think your life’s been difficult so far? Trust me, it can get a whole lot worse.”

Riley backed away despite herself. “Weak threat when I don’t know who’s signing your paychecks.”

Sharla leered up at Sam. “Our boss is well connected. He can get this guy arrested like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I mean, look.” She pried at his fingers on her neck. “I’ve got bruises, and they match his hands.”

Sam didn’t move, but Riley slumped against the car. She couldn’t risk Sam getting in trouble, not when he’d tried so hard to help her. “Let them go.”

“You sure?” When she nodded, Sam shoved them several feet up the aisle between rows of cars. They walked off, Sharla strutting and Vern moving with a bounce in his step that made Riley nearly regret the decision. Until she looked at Sam and remembered their threats. Not worth it.

Sam settled against the car next to her. “So we’re back to the Society and the Protectorate option.”

Riley suppressed a shudder. It was inevitable, she knew. She couldn’t resist going to Boston anymore, but everything in her held back, and she returned to one of her arguments from earlier. “We still don’t know if Sharla and Vern were sent by the Society.”

Sam pressed fingers to his forehead, then dropped his hand. “If I can convince you they weren’t, will you go to Boston?”

“I guess…”

“Then come on. Let’s go to the library. You can follow me.”

“The library?” She let him usher her into her car and automatically put on her seatbelt. “Why?”

He leaned into the open door, putting himself closer to her than he’d been since their mutual doctoring session the night before. A wave of awareness swept over her, and she slowly breathed in his warm, mellow scent, now spiced with laundry soap and aftershave. It took a few seconds to tune back in to his words.

“They have free WiFi. I can use my laptop to look up these numbers and the company Vern works for. Then we’ll drive up to Boston.”

He closed the door before Riley registered what he’d said. He wasn’t sending her up there by herself. He was going with her.

…

Sam was glad they had to drive to the library in separate cars. Once he’d tuned into Riley as a woman rather than someone who needed his help, he couldn’t shut it off. He wouldn’t have advised confronting Sharla and Vern like that, but her fierce determination had been pretty hot.

He needed a distraction.

The drive would be long enough for him to call the Society again. He knew Riley didn’t want him talking to them behind her back, but he could speak more freely if she wasn’t listening. He stuck the earbud in his ear, connected it to the phone, and speed-dialed the main number. While it rang, he checked the rearview mirror. Riley was directly behind him.

A familiar voice came on the line. “S-G-E-P.”

“Alana. I thought you got a new receptionist?”

“Hi, Sam!” The Society’s executive director went from professional to pleased in two words. “Haven’t heard from you in a while. The receptionist is out this morning. What can I do for you?”

If she hadn’t sounded so welcoming when she’d heard his voice, the lack of small talk would have felt like punishment. He heard voices in the background and assumed she was busy.

“I need to talk to Kirsten, if she’s available.” She was the new head of the education department and would help register Riley and set her up for programs and training.

“Oh, didn’t you hear? Kirsten is on maternity leave!”

“No. I didn’t even know she was pregnant.” He felt bad for not sending a gift. It was weird to be so out of touch, but he had no one to blame but himself for his sense of detachment.

“Marley took over again—temporary duty,” Alana said. “I’ll put you through.”

Sam tapped his fingers impatiently while he waited for the call to transfer.

“Sam!”

Marley’s greeting was several notches more enthused than Alana’s. “Hi, Marley. How are you?”

“Excellent. It feels really good to be back here. How about you? I’d love to have you help out with a few classes.”

He liked teaching, but that was the opposite of not getting sucked in. Saying no wouldn’t be easy, though, if he went up to Boston with Riley. “We’ll see. What do you have going on right now for newly empowered goddesses?”

“Why? Do you have one?” He heard shuffling papers followed by mouse clicks. “I didn’t think anyone was turning twenty-one right now, and we haven’t had anyone off the radar since we got the new database up and running.”

Over time, the Society had gotten complacent about tracking births and empowerment, only recording them once reported by members. But when they’d set up the database, they’d found more pending goddesses than they’d known about through existing membership.

“I met a young woman, Riley Kordek, whose mother might have been dormant. She died right before Riley’s powers manifested a couple of years ago. Can you check to see if she was ever registered?” He gave her the name Riley had provided earlier, both her maiden and married names.

Marley tapped on her keyboard, then said, “Nope. No record. No one by the name of Kordek at all, but there wouldn’t be if that’s her father’s name.”

“What about ancestors? They may have gone dormant a couple of generations back.”

“I’ll look. I might have to dig. A lot of the older stuff isn’t in the database.”

“I appreciate it.” Sam changed lanes, making sure there was enough space for Riley to follow. “There was apparently some kind of rift between the family and the Society. Riley was raised not to trust you guys but doesn’t really know why.”

“I’ll see what I can find. In the meantime, I can start her registration. What’s her age and source?”

“She’s almost twenty-four, and it’s metal.”

Marley whistled. “Wow. We’ve only had a couple other metal sources in the last century.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“How does it manifest?”

“Channeling. She blew a couple of muggers about ten feet last night.” He kept the explanation simple for now. Riley could tell her entire story to John when they got to Boston so he could assign her a protector.

“Muggers, huh?” Marley sounded skeptical, and Sam frowned.

“Why? Have other people been having problems?” It hadn’t occurred to him that Riley might not be the only target.

“Not that I’m aware of,” she said. “That’s just too simple, given your track record.”

“True enough,” he said with a laugh.

“Anyway, we’ve got nothing going on right now. I have literature for her and she can go through the short-term mentorship program, but I don’t have any other newbies to register for six months, so I can’t set up a full class.”

“All right. I’ll talk to her about it, and we’ll decide when we get up there.”

He could hear her frowning when she spoke. “Up here? You’re coming up to register her in person?”

“I’ll explain when we get there.”

“Okay, cool. It’ll be good to see you.”

“You, too. Hey,” he hurried on. “Is John there? I tried to call him earlier and got voice mail.”

“He and Jeannine had an offsite meeting this morning. He’s here now, though. Hang on.”

Sam pulled up to a red light and checked that Riley was still following. She was, but so was the car that had been behind her when they left the impound lot. It had a discreet rental agency sticker on the windshield.